the archbishop

MPs' expenses: Tony Blair facing questions over the £296,000 mortgage - Telegraph

MPs' expenses: Tony Blair facing questions over the £296,000 mortgage

Tony Blair is facing fresh questions over how he funded his multi-million-pound property empire after details of the former Prime Minister's claims were leaked to The Sunday Telegraph.

View of Tony Blair's home in Connaught Square in Central London Photo: Christopher Pledger
The documents show that Mr Blair remortgaged his constituency home for £296,000, almost 10 times what he paid for it, months before he bought his town house in London for £3.65 million. Mr Blair was able to claim on his parliamentary expenses for the interest repayments on almost a third of the new mortgage on his constituency home.
The amount loaned was sufficient to cover the deposit on his house in Connaught Square, west London, one of five properties owned by the former prime minister, valued at £10 million in total.
Although Mr Blair did not break parliamentary rules, dozens of MPs appear to have used similar strategies to build property portfolios, which has given rise to suggestions that they "played the system".
Mr Blair, who has earned about £16 million since leaving office, through public speaking, directorships and a book deal, bought his constituency home in Trimdon, County Durham, shortly after he was elected as an MP in 1983.
He took out a £30,000 mortgage to buy the house, later remortgaging it for about £90,000 to cover the cost of improvements and renovations.
The parliamentary Green Book, which sets out the rules on what MPs can claim, states that members can increase their mortgages to pay for improvements if they have the prior permission of the fees office.
Mr Blair remortgaged the property for a second time at the end of 2003. He secured a loan of £296,000 from the Cheltenham & Gloucester, on a house that was worth an estimated £250,000 to £300,000 at the time. This suggests that the lender may have taken into account Mr Blair's ability to claim part of the interest on his expenses, when it agreed the mortgage.
The additional £206,000 which Mr Blair borrowed on top of the original purchase price and cost of renovations was enough to cover the £182,500 deposit he put down on Connaught Square, which was also bought with a Cheltenham & Gloucester mortgage.
David Hollingworth, a mortgage expert from London and County, said it was entirely possible that Mr Blair used the money raised on the Durham house to pay the deposit on Connaught Square.
"It would be possible to raise money on one property for the purpose of buying another," he said. "A lot of people remortgage their main home to obtain a buy to let mortgage, and others do it to raise a deposit for their sons or daughters, for example.Having said that, if someone came to me wanting to buy a £3.65 million property with a five per cent deposit which they had raised on another property, I would consider that a pretty tricky case."
The question of how Mr Blair was able to obtain a £3,467,500 mortgage on Connaught Square, which was more than 18 times his salary at the time, has always been surrounded in mystery.
The house took the couple's mortgage commitments to £4 million, which included the Durham property, and two flats in Bristol, one of which has since been sold.
Since leaving office, Mr Blair has bought an £800,000 mews house behind Connaught Square, which has been knocked through to make one property, and a £4 million house in Buckinghamshire, which was the home of the late Sir John Gielgud.
Mr Blair's parliamentary expense forms show that he claimed £387 per month in mortgage interest, just under a third of the total monthly interest payments on the Durham house. One claim form, for 2005-06, is covered with handwritten sums detailing each month's mortgage interest claim to the penny, which vary by around £20 per month as the interest rate changes.
His claim forms for the Additional Costs Allowance for 2004-2007, when he stepped down from parliament, also showed that he claimed £2,218 to pay his cleaner, £2,874.47 for utility bills, £177.13 for food and £15 to pay his window cleaner. He also claimed £1,399.22 for council tax, £458.79 for repairs and £131.50 for his television licence. Among the incidental expense claims are an annual newspaper bill of £1,167.48, regular bills for his Orange mobile phone and £515.75 for the delivery and installation of a Siemens dishwasher.
A spokesman for Mr Blair said yesterday: "Mr Blair only claimed back the interest repayments on the portion of the mortgage which covered the purchase price and improvements to the house. There was no cost to the taxpayer in the rest of the money raised against the property."

MPs' expenses: Tony Blair facing questions over the £296,000 mortgage - Telegraph

mental health understatement

Long wait for mental health help

Mental health problems could cost society £8bn, research has suggested

Some people seeking mental health services in Scotland are kept waiting for more than a year, the public spending watchdog has revealed.

Audit Scotland said there was a lack of information on national waiting times.

But "very long waits" in some areas may reflect a wider trend, its Overview of Mental Health Services report concluded.

It found waits of between 58 and 77 weeks for psychological therapies in two areas covered by NHS Highland.

In Tayside, 40% of older people referred to psychology services were waiting longer than 18 weeks.

There have been programmes to reduce the stigma of mental health problems but more needs to be done Caroline Gardner Audit Scotland 'Mixed picture' in the Highlands

However, the report said the overall situation in Tayside had improved between two visits in 2008 and this year.

Researchers also found "problems" with waiting times for young people in Tayside, Highland and Greater Glasgow and Clyde.

The report said up to 850,000 people experience mental health problems at any one time in Scotland. It said that although mental health problems can affect anyone, those living in deprived areas were at higher risk.

It also said there had been "significant developments" in mental health provision recently, and found strong support among health professionals for current policies.

Cost to society

But it added: "Basic management information on waiting times, staffing levels, vacancies and caseloads is needed for agencies to plan and manage mental health services more effectively.

"In areas where we carried out fieldwork, we found evidence of children and adolescents waiting a long time to access services.

"This is likely to reflect the picture across Scotland."

The NHS spends about £930m a year on mental health services but this is likely to be an underestimate, the report said.

The auditors said previous research indicated that the overall cost to society - including days lost at work - could total £8bn.

Deputy auditor general for Scotland Caroline Gardner said: "There have been programmes to reduce the stigma of mental health problems but more needs to be done.

"There is also a need to ensure that people can access the services they need as quickly as possible and that they can get help out-of-hours or at times of crisis." 

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rich equality pay the father rich bitch

Madonna faces new rival over fight to adopt Chifundo ‘Mercy’ James in Malawi

Hannah Fletcher

A man who claims to be the biological father of Chifundo “Mercy” James, the Malawian girl that Madonna wants to adopt, has said that he will fight to raise her himself.

James Kambewa, 24, told a US television network that he wanted to raise four-year-old Chifundo, despite never having met her. Madonna will take her case for adoption to the Malawi Supreme Court tomorrow.

Mr Kambewa told CBS News: “I want to take care of her and I’m capable to take care of my baby.” He admitted that he had seen his daughter only “in newspapers and on TV, not face to face”, but said that he wore a necklace with his daughter’s name on it and insisted that she should be raised in Malawi.

“I need her to grow as a Malawian, as well as with our culture,” he said. “I don’t have the money to pay a lawyer, but I am looking for one so that I can issue an injunction stopping Madonna from continuing to seek to adopt my daughter.”

Related Links

• Malawi court refuses Madonna adoption

• COMMENT: Orphans face life of hardship

A Malawian court rejected Madonna’s request to adopt the child last month. The law states that foreigners seeking to adopt in Malawi must have been resident in the country for at least 18 months.

The residency restriction was waived when Madonna adopted four-year-old David Banda, also from Malawi, in 2006. Madonna’s Malawian lawyer said that the singer, 50, would give Chifundo a “good life”, as she had given to Banda.

Madonna’s spokeswoman, Liz Rosenberg, said that they had received no confirmation that Mr Kambewa was the real father of Chifundo. “All I know is that [she] has been in an orphanage since the day she was born,” Ms Rosenberg said.

Mr Kambewa said that he had abandoned the girl after her mother died giving birth to her. He said that the woman’s parents had accused him of killing their daughter.

He now works as a domestic worker in Blantyre, the financial capital and second-largest city of Malawi, earning around $80 (£55) a month.

He is waiting to hear whether Legal Aid, a government body that provides free legal services, will provide him with a lawyer.

madonna

When undercover investigators made their way onto Chinese fur farms recently, they found that many animals are still alive and struggling desperately when workers flip them onto their backs or hang them up by their legs or tails to skin them. When workers on these farms begin to cut the skin and fur from an animal's leg, the free limbs kick and writhe. Workers stomp on the necks and heads of animals who struggle too hard to allow a clean cut. When the fur is finally peeled off over the animals' heads, their naked, bloody bodies are thrown onto a pile of those who have gone before them. Some are still alive, breathing in ragged gasps and blinking slowly. Some of the animals' hearts are still beating five to 10 minutes after they are skinned. One investigator recorded a skinned raccoon dog on the heap of carcasses who had enough strength to lift his bloodied head and stare into the camera.

soldier blue

Veterans at 'higher suicide risk'

Young ex-servicemen are three times more likely to kill themselves than their civilian counterparts, a study has suggested.

Veterans aged under 24 are at greatest risk, with those in lower ranks and with shorter careers most vulnerable.

The Centre for Suicide Prevention linked military discharge data between 1996 and 2005 with details of suicides.

The MoD said veterans were entitled to mental health assessments and schemes had been introduced to improve access.

Of the 233,803 individuals who left the armed forces during the study period, 224 took their own lives, the report found.

The suicide risk was highest among young men leaving the armed forces within the first two years of discharge, it said.

'Already vulnerable'

The MoD-funded study found veterans had a low rate of contact with mental health professionals in the year before death, 14% for those aged under 20 and 20% for those under 24 years.

But the overall suicide risk was no greater for ex-military personnel than for civilians when all age groups were considered, from 16 to 49 years. Men aged 30-49 years had a lower rate of suicide than the general population.

The report's lead author, Professor Nav Kapur, said they could not prove why the increased rate occurred, but said there were three possible reasons.

One could be those joining the military at a young age were already vulnerable to suicide.

Whatever the explanation for our findings, these individuals may benefit from some form of intervention Prof Nav Kapur

"This would explain why those serving for a relatively short period of time before being discharged were most likely to take their own lives," Prof Kapur said.

A second explanation was the difficulty a minority of individuals experience making the transition to civilian life, he said.

The effect of exposure to adverse experiences during military service or active deployment was a third possibility.

Yet many of those most at risk had not completed basic training and had not deployed overseas, he said.

The risk of suicide was also higher in young women aged under 20 years compared with the general population, but the overall numbers were small.

Prof Kapur, professor of psychiatry and population health at Manchester University, said: "Whatever the explanation for our findings, these individuals may benefit from some form of intervention.

"Initial pre-recruitment interview, medical examination and training are important in ensuring military health but it should be recognised that those discharged at any of these stages may be at higher risk of suicide."

Support

The study compared the military discharge data with details of suicides collected by the National Confidential Inquiry into Suicides and Homicides.

It used mathematical models to compare the figures to the general population.

A spokesman for the MoD said all service-leavers were entitled to a package to help them re-settle.

Extra help was given to those assessed as vulnerable to help them find accommodation, employment and welfare assistance.

Six community mental health centres have been set up to make it easier for veterans to seek help, he said.

"All veterans are also entitled to a free assessment of their mental health at the Medical Assessment Programme at St Thomas' Hospital in London, he added.

"We are also trialling a mentoring scheme to provide individual support to leavers as they re-adjust to civilian life."

The report comes days after Britain's highest-decorated serving soldier criticised the government for failing to help ex-servicemen and women suffering mental health problems.

Lance Corporal Johnson Beharry called on the government to give more help to his comrades suffering from post traumatic stress disorder, depression and mental breakdowns.